If Only
by Cruelest Sea
Summary: Two words can hold so many regrets.
1. Unheard

Inspiration credit to "The Ballad Of William Robinson" by Billy Mumy.

_**If Only**_

_"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable." - Sydney Smith_

_If only..._

The last time he hears those two words they're a murmured sound from his father's lips, half prayer, half regret. He stares in shock, because his father has never regretted anything. He can take any situation and find some good in it. The man's hands are clenched, knuckles white, shoulders heaving. His father doesn't know he's there and it's intruding to watch this deeply personal display of grief but he can't tear his eyes away or even breathe. The sound echoes in the center of his chest and he knows as long as he lives he will hear those two words.

_If only..._

The last time he sees the sun - not suns, plural, for he will see many of those - it's from the window of the Jupiter 2. At the time he's too young, still too optimistic, and looking forward to the next world, to press his face to the glass and fill his eyes with the sight until they burn. It's a somewhat brighter sun than Earth and in later years he knows a simple glance could have blinded him. But he knows now if he could see it again he would look at it until the world went dark.

_If only..._

The last time his father picks him up he's thirteen, much too old to be held, but it doesn't matter. He's hurt his ankle so his father has a perfectly good reason for carrying him but he knows it's more. The man's arms are trembling and for the first time he senses weakness in the strong frame. He holds around his neck as they go back to the spaceship, grip tight and warm. He doesn't know then that's it's the last time his father will ever hold him.

_If only..._

The last time there are eight of them he's flying the spaceship for the first time alone and he knows he's become a man, trusted. His heart swells with pride and his eyes are awed by the lights and the shooting stars as they pass planets and comets on their way. He sees the asteroid too late to swerve, and his mouth freezes ice cold, unable to even yell. There's a lurch of metal, an explosion of fire, and the spaceship is thrown sideways, crashing through space. His head hits the screen and he slides to the floor. When he wakes it's hours later and the ship is still. Around him he can see his family, tossed like broken dolls. There's one, against the wall, covered in blood and still. He crawls forward, touching him, a name forming in his mouth like a litany. But there's no answer because it's much too late.

_If only..._

The last time he teases Penny they're sitting on the beach and she's afraid to stick her hand into a perfectly harmless hole that he's fished clam-like creatures out of for supper. There's a sound to their left and they turn to see a stranger. Its a crab-like creature, shimmering blue, oddly beautiful and strange. Penny, with her gentle heart and love for all life, reaches out to it. Somehow, for some reason, he shouts, never even knowing why. Her eyes lift to him as her hand brushes the creature, widening with a sudden emotion. His eyes meet her's, framed in horror, in the instant when she knows that he knows...and then her eyes close.

_If only..._

The last time he annoys Don while he's working the pilot is fixing the pump for their fuel and too busy to answer his question but Don listens anyway. After a while he sees the line of frustration set into the man's face and walks away. He's halfway to the spaceship when the land behind him explodes, the mine sending bits of twisted metal into the air. A missing part, Dr. Smith says. He never knows if he talked too much and caused the part to be forgotten. All he remembers is the sound of Judy sobbing, and his own voice echoing two words inside his head.

_If only..._

The last time he sees flowers they're growing beside the grave as if an alien hand placed them there and nowhere else in this desolate world. It's a single patch of strange green stalks with tiny white flowers waving atop like flags of surrender. He hates them, and he loves them. But there's only a little water on this planet and too much sun and they quickly wilt and wither away. He can't bring himself to rip them up so he leaves them there beside the grave, buried with his family.

_If only..._

The last communication he sends out is a single, futile attempt to save the remnant of them still sane, still living. He only sends a brief message - location and _save us_ - before the machine dies. When it finally runs down like a windup toy he slams his fists into the machine, beating on the metal until they're bloody. The others don't look his way, staring sightlessly ahead into the vaulted galaxy that looks just like any of the other millions they've seen over the decades. Only the Robot looks his way, machanical gaze strangely infused with a sort of sympathy.

_If only..._

The last time he flies the Jupiter 2 the craft is out of fuel and the world ahead has none for he's already been there, a week, a month, a year ago...he doesn't remember how long. The craft is falling apart and all the repair work he tries can't fix it. It's simply too old, too worn, and too used. Like him, it has seen too much. The landing is hard but he sets it down in one piece, sunken partially into sand and soon to be buried by it, a final grave for his home and prison.

_If only..._

The last time he cries it's morning and there's no sun. This world simply doesn't have one. He cries silently, and only two tears fall from his eyes, splashing without sound into the sand at his feet and vanishing without a trase. He no longer knows what he's crying for, whether it's his family, or for memory of Earth, or for the abandoned spaceship behind him. Perhaps it's for all of those things. And perhaps for one more...himself.

_If only..._

The last time he thinks it's not in words but merely snatches of memories - isolated images like postcards stuck on a scrapbook page or disjointed phrases from Penny's tapes, long broken and thrown away. Things such as fresh-cut grass and lemonade in crystal glasses, _"Quoth the raven, nevermore."_ or _"and deliver us from evil"_. They linger for a little while, meaningless, devoid of life, before slipping out of his mind and into darkness.

_If only..._

The last time he speaks it's the faintest thread of a whisper that seems unbearably loud in the still room. He speaks only two words, words that used to mean something but he can no longer remember what. He turns his face to the sky and says them as a prayer, a final plea. But there's no answer.

_If only..._

The last time he sees a star it's a cold and lifeless orb suspended between time and space and he wonders how he ever found such a thing beautiful. It's the only star in this entire galaxy and despite himself and out of loneliness he begins to look for it every hour, a last lifeline of sanity in the vastless depths and heights of space. He doesn't know where he is, and he no longer has any concept of where Earth might be, whether up or down, before or behind him. Perhaps it no longer matters. Sometime later he opens his eyes in what might have been night or morning, both are the same here, and sees the star flare up, more brightly than it has ever shone and more than it will ever shine again. His breath catches and heart lurches, mouth opening in a silent cry as the star explodes outwards, delicate silver shards bursting into fire. And in the next instant there's complete and total darkness.

_If only..._

The last time there is only silence and nothing more.


	2. Unrequited

_"I prithee send me back my heart, since I cannot have thine; for if from yours you will not part, why, then, shouldst thou have mine?" - John Suckling_

_If only..._

The last time she falls in love is also the first time. She's at the age, her mother says, and it's spring on this world, a place filled with flowers and running streams, laughter of alien children, and soft green grass beneath her feet.

She sees Don one day and it's as if she's never looked at him before, as if he's suddenly appeared, a knight in shining armor, smile lighting up the sky, eyes as unsearchable as the heavens. She doesn't give the feeling a name at first but one day she thinks of him and knows what it is. Love, quietly growing within her all these months, love for the man her sister loves, the man who loves her sister. She watches them together and her heart aches.

It's her mother who sees the longing in her eyes and mentions it to her father. Only a crush, she says, all girls have them. No doubt its upon one of the alien men in the village. She'll grow out of it, fall in love again, move on to another once they leave the planet.

But there is no one else, not in miles and centuries of endless space, no human and not one like Don. She knows then that she's doomed, for she could never pass her love to someone else like a simple transfusion of blood, settle for someone else and try to forget.

There's only Don, for days and weeks, months and years, Don and no one else ever, and for the first time she hates the Jupiter 2, for it's made her a prisoner, trapped like Tantalus with all she wants just beyond her reach. She has nowhere to forget, no place to move on.

She can only stay here and watch her heart break.

_If only..._

The last time she hears those words spoken aloud they're from Judy, a wistful sigh as she laments the lack of material to make a wedding dress. She says it with great sorrow, as if not having a dress is the worst thing that can happen to them in space, and Penny clenches her fists because she knows that there are things much worse, and if she was marrying Don she wouldn't care if she had to wear her flight suit, as long as they were together.

She sympathizes with Judy later, and even helps her turn some old fabric into a dress. Her fingers brush the cloth, dropping away as if it burns her.

"Someday, we'll get back and you'll wear white, Penny." Judy says comfortingly, mistaking the action. Penny gives a faint nod.

She knows better. They'll never get back, and even if they do, she'll never wear white, or marry. How can she, when her heart is already taken?

_If only..._

The last time Don picks her up she's fallen down a slope and broken her leg. It's only the three of them - Don, Will, and her - with the others miles away from camp, and Will can't possibly carry her.

Don lifts her into his arms and she loops her hands behind his head as they walk over the sand back toward the spaceship. Beneath her head she can hear his heartbeat, steady, even, a melody soothing away the pain.

He carries her inside as if she weighs nothing, like a bride across a threshold, and her heart twists.

He sets her down on the bed, sets her leg, and wraps it up. His hands are gentle and she reaches out and catches hold of one, so large against her small one. His dark eyes lift and her fingers drop from his hand.

"Thank you, Don."

He smiles and gives her a wink, a big brother to a little sister. "Anytime, Penny."

But she doesn't break another leg, or even turn an ankle, so he never carries her again.

_If only..._

The last time she cries it's on a silent, moonlit world that overlooks a quiet sea. It's so blue and beautiful and she longs, deep inside, to share it, half afraid others will not see it's beauty.

She thinks she's all alone and then she looks down on the sand, at Don and Judy standing beside the water, arms around each other, kissing. They're there against _her_ sea, and _her_ moonlight, spoiling and ruining the scene she'd just loved.

She starts running, not even knowing where she's going, tears blinding her, streaming down her face, until she stumbles and falls, the sand scratching at her hands, tearing her clothes. She lays her cheek down on it, tears soaking into the sand and vanishing.

And somewhere in the distance she can hear Judy's laughter.

_If only..._

The last time he touches her it's cold and raining and she's forgotten her coat. He takes his off and wraps it around her with a warm smile and she looks up at him, heart aching until she thinks her chest will burst.

He taps her nose with his index finger, a brotherly gesture, a tease. "That better, Penny?"

She manages a nod and continues helping him gather up the canisters, not trusting her voice to speak a word. It was such a meaningless touch, none of the tender love in the way he touches Judy, and she knows, deep inside, that it's over before it started, that she'll never be anything but a little sister to him, yet she would give anything for him to hold her, just once, or to trust her voice to tell him how she cares.

She doesn't know then that it's the last time he'll ever touch her at all.

_If only..._

The last time she speaks his name she says it without thinking, a meaningless fragment of a day she'd ordinarily have never remembered if it hadn't been the last time.

She asks him to pass the bread, keeping her voice quiet and controlled as she always does around him, allowing no tenderness to creep in and give herself away. He passes it to her without looking at her, and she takes it by the edge, fingers inches from his.

She makes no move to close the gap.

_If only..._

The last time Don looks at her it's a quiet morning on a planet where it's always summer and she can't help thinking how cruel it is for this world to never know spring, the time when things come alive and love enters into emptiness. He looks at her only an instant and a smile crosses his face.

"Daydreaming, Penny?"

"I suppose so." She gathers the flowers and starts to walk away, leaving him tinkering on their fuel pump. She's all the way to the stand of rocks above the ship when she hears the explosion, when she turns, and she _knows_.

He's lying there, still and silent, and she comes, kneels beside him, and takes his head in her lap, gently stroking his hair. His eyes flicker open.

"Penn.." A rough cough cuts off the word as a trickle of blood escapes his mouth. She should call for help but there's no need. He's gone before he finishes her name and she leans forward and kisses him, his mouth unresponsive. There's no need to pretend, not anymore. She can hurt no one now except herself.

_If only..._

The last time she hears those words they're inside her own head for no one voices them, not now, not ever. Wishing can do nothing. It can't create love or bring back the dead.

Behind her she hears Judy weeping, bending over the grave that they'll soon leave, leave Don buried in another world, another place that they'll never see again. Judy, mourning for all she's lost.

Penny doesn't weep, doesn't shed a tear. She stands very still, an axed tree the moment before it falls.

She has no right to mourn.

He was never her's, after all.


End file.
